Marshall & Ogletree Developments

[nullogik]

Just been on the M&O website and have seem that they've extended their "range" of offerings. Notable is the fact that the new additions are all priced below the Opus mark to reflect the current economic climate one would imagine - since there are few Churches around that could afford a completely bespoke M&O organ.

Services offered:

M&O Opus - As before. Totally bespoke organ to individual customer's requirements.

M&O Prodigy - New! They've standardised some of the features available to bring the price down to a slightly more palatable sub USD$200,000 mark. It looks like it will be competing at a very similar price point to an Allen Elite.

PDF brochure here:

http://www.marshallandogletree.com/f...20Brochure.pdf

Link to product page: http://www.marshallandogletree.com/prodigy/

M&O Consort - As before. Adding digital ranks to existing pipe organs.

M&O Revelation - New! The upgrading of an existing digital organ with an improved audio system and/or pipe additions

[myorgan]

I'm just curious about the level of interest in M&O among organists, given their "dramatic" history. I know that would throw me off a bit in doing business with them. Of course, I'm a rather cheap person, so I'd never pay that much for an organ anyway.:-)

[arie v]

Nullogik,

I guess with a depressed economy, organ sales in decline, M&O have decided to streamline things a bit, and bring out instruments that are more affordable.

The reality is, very few all digital instruments are sold each year that are priced over $200,000. At that price level, a pipe organ or a used pipe organ especially becomes an alternative as an instrument.

I thing I did find somewhat eye opening, this new model if you will, can come with as few as 8 audio channels. I think this is too few for a truly high end instrument. I would say a minimum of 16 channels sounds more reasonable.

I'm sure this new concept by M&O us designed to compete with the Walker Technical and the Allen Elite. And those instruments are not selling like hot cakes.

AV

[radagast]

I like the look of the consoles. The French drawknob console is much more authentic looking than Allen's terraced consoles, and the M&O terraced console doesn't look too wide, which is a problem with many other terraced consoles. Now if M&O could just get a library full of great Cavaille-Coll samples to put in it, it would be perfect.

[radagast]

I'm just curious about the level of interest in M&O among organists, given their "dramatic" history. I know that would throw me off a bit in doing business with them. Of course, I'm a rather cheap person, so I'd never pay that much for an organ anyway.:-)

What do you mean by "dramatic"? The Torrence/Yeager organization is no longer affiliated with M&O.

[circa1949]

The French drawknob console is much more authentic looking than Allen's terraced consoles
Allen's ugly french consoles of late are a mystery. Surely, they know how to design other console styles in a well-proportioned and gracefully styled manner. Certainly, the customer has the final say-so on a custom organ, so until all of their other consoles start to look ugly, I place the blame squarely on the purchaser. ;-)